August 12, 2004

Surprising reversal retains name of library
Gary Dillon halts debate to avoid divisiveness in the community

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

After a surprising statement from the widower of a revered teacher in whose name city officials were considering renaming the Almaden Branch Library, the San Jose City Council voted unanimously in favor of retaining the facility’s name.

“Doris Dillon spent her entire life as a builder of alliances,” said retired educator Gary Dillon, reading a prepared statement to councilmembers. “She was a force always focused on the positive, a dreamer and worker of what could be.

“Doris would not want to be witness to the controversy that has occurred surrounding this proposal nor the rift that seems to be dividing our community,” continued the father of two, his voice cracking with emotion. He added that his late wife would not have wanted the facility, scheduled to reopen in 2006, to begin operations under a “cloud of bitterness and hurt feelings.”

“I personally feel we have missed an opportunity here, but at the same time I must honor Doris’ wishes and do what is best to bring our community together.”

Gary Dillon ended his remarks by formally withdrawing the proposal to change the library’s name.

The city council’s vote came after San Jose Vice Mayor Pat Dando made a motion to retain the name of the Almaden Branch Library, and to name its children’s area the “Doris Dillon Children’s Library,” and to direct library staff to work with community members and her office to develop signage and other appropriate recognition.

Dando’s move halted what was sure to be an excruciatingly long meeting that would have further pitted two sides of the community against each other creating discord and animosity.

Residents who had signed up to speak against the renaming of the library, many of whom were members of the newly formed Committee for the Preservation of the Almaden Library Name (CPALN), were pleasantly surprised by Dando’s motion and thus declined to speak. One by one, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales read their names, and they either passed or said they supported the motion.

Dando praised Gary Dillon for having the courage to kill the controversial proposal. “What he just did reflects so personally the character and grace that Doris Dillon lived by and died for,” said the District 10 councilmember. She explained that Gary Dillon was not part of the recommendation to name the library after his wife.

The request, she emphasized, came from many community individuals who wanted to find a way to remember someone who impacted their lives so deeply.

Dando said she, too, believed that the late teacher would never have wanted to create dissension in the community. “Doris Dillon worked for 35 years to build the community. Doris would probably be befuddled over all of this discussion… She would have never wanted that. She certainly would have never wanted to have this debate over a library.

She would also never have supported it.”

Dando also clarified that it was never the intention of those who supported the renaming of the facility to remove the word “Almaden” from the name. “Almaden is part of our heritage. It’s our history. It’s the roots that give us stability in our community. The only intention was to possibly, given the opportunity, recognize our most recent history.”

In making the motion to name the facility the Almaden Branch Library and to name the children’s area of the library the Doris Dillon Children’s Library, Dando said the city had missed an opportunity.

Dando said there would be, on rare occasions, opportunities to recognize individuals who touch the community and put their fingerprints on the lives of so many individuals especially children by maybe naming facilities after them.

“I believe that we should start to look at naming facilities for regular people, people who go to work every day.

They never expect anything. They never ask for anything. So often in the community, we don’t do that. We name our buildings after individuals that either have been elected, are rich enough to buy the name or are famous sports figures.”

Dando said she hoped someday children would walk through the library and develop the joy of learning and the joy of reading that was Doris Dillon’s legacy from three decades of teaching at Graystone and Williams Elementary Schools.

For his part, Gonzales said although he had never met Doris Dillon, she was automatically a hero to him because he considers educators, fire fighters and police officers to be heroes.

The mayor said he was impressed because Doris Dillon had taught children for 30 years and had also been a master teacher who trained hundreds of student teachers from San Jose State University.

Roberta Bondelie, a retired teacher with a distinguished career in the San Jose Unified School District, read from the Ecclesiastes portion of the Bible that was given to friends who attended Doris Dillon’s memorial service.

Bondelie said in planning her memorial, she gave all her friends seeds to plant. One of her favorite quotes was, “What I hope to leave you with is that many voices make the most wonderful choir and no matter what your cause is, find one and be a champion for it. Become a voice. You will feel enlightened and learn that some of your own personal problems will seem much less.”

“If you sat down and wrote the criteria that would be used to name public buildings, Doris Dillon would fit that criteria,” said Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce President Jim Cunneen. “In our community, there’s a lost art of storytelling. We need to tell more stories—not just stories about place, but about the people who lived in this place. That’s what Doris Dillon and the naming of that library really represented. It’s the people’s history that really needs to be told.”

Doris Dillon died Aug. 21, 2001, of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Members of the CPALN were armed with binders and statistics to share with the council and mayor about an informal survey they took through a flyer, which they said revealed that out of 844 responses, only 16 wanted the name changed.

The committee, formed July 27, was backed by the Library Commission—an advisory board to the council—which voted June 2 to keep the Almaden Branch Library name and by the Almaden Valley Community Association, which also voted to preserve the name at its July meeting.

To state their case, they said the Almaden, Alviso, Berryessa, Cambrian, Calabazas, Evergreen, Hillview, Pearl Avenue, Rose Garden, Santa Teresa, SevenTrees, Vineland, Willow Glen and West Valley library branches serve their neighborhoods and their name reflects that they are a community facility.

CPALN member Linda Spencer, a library volunteer, said she was happy with the meeting’s outcome and noted that those who opposed the renaming of the facility favored naming the children’s library section after Doris Dillon. “We know she was a wonderful and fantastic teacher, but we are all so attached to our name for the library,” Spencer said.

Similarly, Almaden resident Robert Durbeck, who served for a decade as a volunteer at the Almaden Valley Branch Library and was also the past chairman of the Friends of the Almaden Valley Branch Library membership committee, stressed the group had nothing against the deceased teacher. They wanted to preserve the library’s original name choosing geography over people in naming buildings and other landmarks.

“The trouble was that 95 percent of the people we talked to didn’t know her. Even the people who lived in the neighborhood around the school she taught,” Durbeck said.

Gary Dillon said that he had contacted his supporters and those who were going to make presentations in favor of the name change earlier Tuesday afternoon encouraging them not to attend the meeting after he decided to withdraw the proposal.

Many education officials and hundreds of students and teachers were silenced Tuesday evening by their absence and by Dando’s and Gary Dillon’s desire to bring the community together.